Slice of Life: A slice of life from my dad's moleskin journal

On Tuesdays, Two Writing Teachers hosts the Slice of Life. Everyone is welcome to share writing and comment on others in this special community. 

  

"Would you ever consider a writing class for older people?" a woman asked me last week. 

Over the six weeks since opening The Writing Clinic, I've had several requests for various sorts of writing classes, and classes for adults has come up. Classes for people with dementia is very much on my list of possibilities. 

"One of the most special things I have in my office is the moleskin journal that my dad used to write it," I responded. 

The moleskin journal is green, and the first several pages contain entries my father wrote during the time when we were all suffering from his dementia. My four daughters were in middle and high school, and we had a family ritual of writing after dinner. For five to ten minutes, everyone stayed at the table and wrote a slice of life. (Yes, we really did that.) The girls complained at first, but it became another thing they had to do to keep their compulsive mother happy. They complied, sometimes more than others. To be honest, we didn't do this every night, but we did all write together on many of them. The girls laugh about the ritual now, and they are even planning some family write-nights next week when they are all home for the holidays. 

The woman's question about class offerings inspired me to open the pages of Doc's notebook. What a gift is was to read his words from 2013. How has it been so long? Weren't we just at that table sitting around and telling stories?